"No, he's not a man in a wheelchair. He's Ironside in a wheelchair. If we go in there to rescue him, then he is a man in a wheelchair." - Eve Whitfield (Barbara Anderson) explaining why her boss should be allowed to follow a lead on his own
Ironside: Season 1 DVD Review
By Jude Clement
At 46, Robert Ironside (Raymond Burr, Perry Mason) is the youngest Chief of Detectives in the history of the San Francisco Police Department. He might be young by Chief of Detectives standards, but he is one tough customer. When Ironside is on the case, he refuses to give up until the criminal is brought to justice. He hasn't even taken a vacation in twenty-five years, instead spending every spare moment cracking cases. At the urging of Commissioner Dennis Randall (Gene Lyons), Ironside grudgingly takes a few days off, retreating to the Commissioner's chicken farm in rural Sonoma. This vacation turns out to be less than restful. First, Ironside has to contend with a coopful of squawking chickens. Then, a sniper guns down the Chief as he sips bourbon on the front porch. While Ironside's dedication has definitely helped to clean up San Francisco's streets, it seems that it has also earned him more than a few enemies.
It's the late 1960s and there are no equal opportunity laws, so when Ironside is left paralyzed from the waist down by the gunshot, he is forced to retire from being Chief of Detectives. Never one to give up, the wheelchair-bound lawman convinces Commissioner Randall to take him on as a volunteer special consultant. Ironside commandeers an unused office in police headquarters, makes it wheelchair accessible, stocks it with equipment to help facilitate his rehabilitation (including numerous cans of chili, his favorite food), and gets back to solving crimes...starting with the one that left him physically crippled.
Helping Ironside investigate cases are Detective Sergeant Ed Brown (Don Galloway, Arrest and Trial) and policewoman Eve Whitfield (Barbara Anderson, Mission: Impossible). Also aiding the Chief is Mark Sanger (Don Mitchell, Scream Blacula Scream), a former juvenile delinquent who is now Ironside's manservant of sorts. In exchange for Ironside paying his way through college, Mark serves as his bodyguard, helper, and the driver of his souped-up paddy wagon (which looks like a leftover from The Untouchables, only with a wheelchair lift and a special cabinet for Ironside's bourbon).
Ironside isn't exactly the easiest person to work for. He enjoys teaching his young charges, but uses an abrasive "tough love" technique. He is often gruff and bullying, forcing Eve into a situation where she has to shoot another criminal after she becomes gun-shy upon killing a teen who was committing an armed robbery. He often "inspires" African-American Mark by making disparaging remarks about his race.
The series is also guilty of overtly playing to its audience. Hippies, peaceniks, artists, and performers are often derided as freaks and villains. In "A Very Cool Hot Car," an investigation into a car theft ring leads to a salvage yard run by a brother and sister hippie team. The duo wears mod clothing that looks as if it was constructed out of old sofa upholstery, tinted sunglasses, and wacky hairdos. Needless to say, Ironside is not amused:
Hippie Guy: We're flower people and we don't believe in shaking hands with policemen.
Ironside: You brother and sister, husband and wife, or do you just cross pollinate?
To be fair, many shows of this period - including the '60s incarnation of Dragnet and Hawaii Five-O - showed similar disdain for youth culture, but the first season of Ironside seems to do it a lot. This attitude dates the series, making it seem as old as the audience it was pandering to.
The series is most successful in its casting. Burr was just coming off of his near decade-long run on Perry Mason. His new character is a bit too calculatedly anti-Mason, but Burr is still highly watchable. Galloway, Anderson, and Mitchell are all easy on the eyes and likable. All four actors are given one-dimensional characters, but stick around - the series (and the characters) grow in subsequent seasons.
Among the familiar faces you'll see in Ironside: Season 1 are Tiny Tim (the "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" guy, not the kid from A Christmas Carol), Wally Cox (Mr. Peepers), Kim Darby (Rich Man, Poor Man), Kathleen Freeman (It's About Time), Kent McCord (Adam-12), Barbara Barrie (Barney Miller), John Rubinstein (Crazy Like a Fox), Lee Grant (Peyton Place), Quincy Jones (who also composed the theme song), William Schallert (The Patty Duke Show), Don Stroud (Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer), John Saxon (Another World), Norman Fell (Three's Company), Bruce Lee, John Sebastian, Robert Reed (The Brady Bunch), David Hartman (Good Morning America), Bernie Hamilton (Starsky & Hutch), Harrison Ford (Star Wars), Ed Asner (The Mary Tyler Moore Show), Susan Saint James (Kate & Allie), Pernell Roberts (Trapper John, M.D.), Nicholas Colasanto (Cheers), Lorraine Gary (Jaws), Kiel Martin (Hill Street Blues), Marion Ross (Happy Days), Vera Miles (Psycho), Dwayne Hickman (The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis), Gavin MacLeod (The Mary Tyler Moore Show), and Gary Collins.
The twenty-eight episodes (and the original TV movie pilot) that make up Ironside: Season 1 are divided onto eight discs. The discs are housed in four slim, clear plastic keepcases, each of which holds two discs. The fronts of the cases feature the same large photo of Raymond Burr, each one tinted in a different color. The backs of the cases include titles, brief synopses, notable guest stars, and original airdates for each episode. The interiors of the cases include a stylized concentric circle pattern while the discs themselves feature a silhouette of Ironside. The keepcases slide into a cardboard outer sleeve.
The DVD menus are simple and easy to navigate. Viewers can play all of the disc's episodes or choose them individually. The episodes are divided into chapters, but there are no scene selection menus.
